Tuesday 27 July 2010 08.05 EDT
First published on Tuesday 27 July 2010 08.05 EDT

Kaing Guek Eav, the Khmer Rouge chief jailer sentenced to 35 years in prison for overseeing the deaths of up to 16,000 people, plans to appeal against his conviction by a UN-backed war crimes tribunal, a tribunal spokesman said today. Eav, also known as Comrade Duch, was yesterday convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Duch was the first major Khmer Rouge figure to face trial more than three decades after the regime's brutal rule led to the deaths of 1.7 million people. He will only have to serve 19 years of his sentence after taking into account time already served and other factors.

The tribunal spokesman, Reach Sambath, said Duch's lawyer, Kar Savuth, had notified the tribunal of his intent to appeal.

"Kar Savuth told me several hours after the verdict was issued that he would appeal," Sambath said. "He said he would have appealed a sentence of even one day."

Duch oversaw the Tuol Sleng prison and torture centre, which was codenamed S-21. He admitted his guilt during testimony, but said he was only following orders, had acted out of desperation to save his and his family's lives and should not be held responsible.

Survivors of the killing fields of 1975-79 expressed anger and disbelief at what they saw as too lenient a sentence for a key player in the Khmer Rouge regime, which wiped out a quarter of Cambodia's population.

Four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders are awaiting trials, which are due to begin later this year.